


Four Hours

by bri_ness



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe, Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Alternating, Yeah this is not a happy one lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 06:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15723861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bri_ness/pseuds/bri_ness
Summary: Isak's flight home is delayed four hours, and he doesn't have that kind of time.Even's flight home is delayed four hours, and he wishes it were longer.(Or, Isak and Even meet in an airport).





	Four Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I am very, very rusty, but I am back with a sad thing. Hopefully you'll like it.
> 
> I'm on tumblr [@brionbroadway](http://brionbroadway.tumblr.com), but fair warning, 90% of my posts are about Big Brother and Australian Survivor right now.

It’s too long.

It’s a storm delay; it’s not safe to fly; it’s four hours, at least. And then another eight fucking hours in the air.

Isak just doesn’t have that kind of time. Some things don’t delay, don’t give a fuck about safety, and have never, ever operated on his schedule, so why would this be any different?

He shouldn’t have gone. He knew that. And it was all for what, getting drunk in another country? That’s too fucking crowded anyway, too full of people he doesn’t want to know.

Isak digs his fingernails into his palms, and he knows he is supposed to focus on taking long, deep breaths—fucking Magnus has bought into Vilde’s self-help bullshit now—but he does not do that.

Instead, he takes his fist and slams it against his knee, because it’s just too fucking long.

“Fucking hell.”

Isak leans back in the shitty plastic seat that’s too small for him, and thinks he is probably going to cry.

“Are you ok?”

\---

It’s a stupid question.

The guy’s essentially throwing a temper tantrum, so either he has anger issues, which Even is not equipped to handle, or he’s sincerely not ok, which Even is definitely not equipped to handle.

But he has the time. Four more hours in New York, an incredible gift. Four more hours before he has to fly, which is terrifying, and twelve in total until he’s grounded again, which is worse.

The guy looks at him like it’s a stupid question, which is fair.

“Yeah. Just want to get home.”

He mumbles more than speaks, but that’s ok. Even doesn’t mind working to listen.

“Oslo is home?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

“ _Cool_.”

This guy is maybe a bit of a dick, but he’s going through something, so Even can let it slide—

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Even says, switching from English to Norwegian. That at least makes the guy relax a little.

“No, you’re nice. I’m being an asshole.”

Even shrugs because he can’t argue that, and anyway, now the guy is looking at him with a face that can’t hide anything but is beautiful all the same.

Twelve more hours, and now there’s a boy.

Fuck.

_\---_

“I’m Even.”

“Isak.”

On another day, when Isak’s time actually belonged to him, he would recognize that Even is hot, and kind, and if he felt a little bold, he’d do something about that.

But that’s not today.

“What’s going to help?” Even asks, the simplest question with the hardest answer.

“Being home.”

“And until then?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about a distraction?”

Isak doesn’t really feel like he has a right to be distracted, but if he spends twelve fucking hours with nothing but these thoughts—well, he’ll end up as crazy as her, won’t he?

He shouldn’t have thought that.

“Yeah, fuck it. Ok.”

“I always play this game in airports,” Even begins, leaning forward in his seat. “Where I make up stories about the other passengers, why they’re here, where they’re going. Like, her?” He points to a well-dressed, professional woman Isak would assume is on a business trip. “Thirty-seven, recently divorced, going down south on a spur-of-the-moment trip solely to hook up. She’ll start writing a screenplay on a beach, most likely about zombies, but she’ll toss it into the ocean before she leaves. When she gets back home to Connecticut or another place that sounds like Connecticut, she’ll message her favourite hook-up on Facebook, but he won’t reply. Oh, and she’s definitely going to take up rock climbing.”

Isak stares.

“Where the fuck did you get that from?”

“Sometimes people aren’t what you expect.”

“Original.”

“Thanks, asshole.”

Isak smiles, and it seems to encourage Even.

“But don’t you think?” he continues. “That it’s more fun to imagine people than it is to know them?”

And if that’s not the saddest, fucking loneliest thing Isak’s ever heard.

Safe, though. It would be safer than this.

\---

Even has original lines. That just wasn’t one of them.

Too original, according to some of his professors. _Don’t go so abstract, so broad, so fucking weird that you stop being relatable. The specific is universal._

And that criticism in New York! If he’s too weird for New York, he’s really fucked.

“Guess I don’t have much of an imagination,” Isak says.

“Bullshit. You’re imagining me as someone right now, aren’t you?”

He’s flirting, why the fuck is he flirting?

Isak turns sideways in his seat and squints at Even. “You’re kind of self-important.”

Even laughs as he puts his hand to his heart in mock-offence. “Wow. No going easy on me, huh?”

Isak shakes his head. “Like, you’ve taken it upon yourself to help me, like you know your games and lines are going to be enough.”

“They’re not?”

“I didn’t say that. And you dress like a hipster, so you’re kind of artsy, right? You must have a screenplay in the ocean somewhere.”

He’s not _wrong_ , but he also doesn’t have the full story. He wrote that screenplay when he was manic, and he threw it into a lake—more accessible if less romantic than the ocean—when he was manic, and then he didn’t leave his bed for six weeks.

But that’s not very fun to talk about, and he has twelve more hours—less, now—until he’s grounded again, so he’s not going to.

“Maybe a bit of a player?” Isak continues.

Even raises his eyebrows. “And what would give you that impression?”

“You look like that, so why not?”

“Not to mention that I flirt with boys in airports.”

Just like that, Isak’s gaze snaps away from Even, and he shifts in his seat so he’s facing the departures board again.

“Fuck, how long is four hours?”

He pulls his snapback down over his face, and that’s it, Even supposes. Of course, because that’s who Even really is.

He ends everything he starts.

\---

Isak tries to sleep, which is fucking ridiculous.

He can’t sleep in his own bed, exhausted, when everything is objectively fine, so why should he sleep on a plastic chair, wired, when everything is objectively shit?

But he keeps up the act, for what feels like two, maybe even three hours, but is only one. As he puts his snapback on his head, he sees that Even’s sprawled out, resting his feet on the chair across from him. He’s scribbling in a book that’s balanced on his lap, and Isak leans over to sneak a closer look.

He’s drawn the sky, and it is fucking chaos.

Everything Isak could imagine is between the clouds—medicine, instruments, sneakers, vegetables, literally the kitchen sink—and Even is just adding more and more to it.

“What the fuck?”

“You need to broaden your vocabulary.”

But Even smirks at his page, then looks up at Isak. “You said I was artsy,” Even says. “I’m just being who you want me to be.”

“Yeah, but I thought you’d be good at it.”

Even laughs. “Ok, now you sound like my profs. Asshole.”

“You’re studying this?”

“I was.” Even closes his sketchbook. “And now I’m going home.”

“Do you want to go home?”

It’s a question Isak’s often wished he would have been asked instead of just being brought there. Even considers it.

“No.”

“Sorry. That sucks.”

“Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

Isak decides that Even is someone who would like to be a good liar, but is not. He can relate.

“Can I see your sky?”

Definitely a bad liar: Even doesn’t hide his surprise in the quirk of his eyebrows, nor his eagerness in how quickly he hands the sketchbook over. Examining it closely, there’s more that Isak didn’t notice at first: the clouds themselves are ornate, filled with details as romantic as hearts and as threatening as thunder.

“Why is there so much shit in it?” Isak asks.

“Because it’s like the ultimate, uncontrollable thing. Anything can happen in the sky.”

“That’s just literally not true.”

“But it _feels_ that way, so does that not make it true?”

If his mom’s delusions are real to her, are they not true? All the things she believes about him, well, what does that mean for who Isak is?

And how fucking selfish is he to be worried about himself right now?

To be flirting with a boy.

\---

Even is scared of flying.

He understands that, unlike what his drawing suggests, a piano is unlikely to be on the same route as their plane, but fuck if that doesn’t feel possible when he’s actually in the clouds.

But Even’s used to that, believing insane things in the clouds, then crashing the fuck back down.

Those parts of him are real. He’s sick, he gets that, and some days there’s nothing he wants more than to divorce his real self from his bipolar disorder. But it’s all him, isn’t it? It’s still all him, and it’s all real.

Which means anything can happen.

Two hours before their flight leaves now. Isak hasn’t spoken since his last question, just quietly gave Even his sketchbook back and put his headphones on. He probably scared him.

Even gives Isak his space, until his breathing goes fast and shallow, until he clenches his fists again, until he closes his eyes like crying is the worst thing could do.

So Even nudges him with his shoulder, and when Isak glances at him, Even extends his hand. Isak takes it with less hesitance than Even expected.

“Just breathe.”

He does.

“Distraction?” Isak asks.

And that’s what Even can do.

“This passenger,” Even says, squeezing Isak’s hand. “Twenty-two, maybe? Sweet. Very sensitive.”

“I’m not—”

“Hey, you can’t correct how I imagine you. And those aren’t bad things, anyway. You’re going home, but to be fair, you told me that. There are probably a few people who have a crush on you there, but you’re independent. You have your own apartment, and a cat, you definitely have a cat. Anyway, you were in New York on vacation, but you’re so anxious to get home that—there must be someone you love there?”

From here, Even could speculate that it’s a romance, that Isak has a crush on one of those people back home. That could be fun, and maybe a nice distraction, to play that game, to turn his life into something it’s not.

Because Even knows, he can sense it: Isak is in a tragedy right now. It feels rude to say that. It feels worse to pretend his life is something better than it is. Even hates that.

“My mom tried to kill herself this morning.”

Oh.

Even’s guilt turns him inside out.

\---

“I’m sorry.”

Isak expected more from Even, which is unfair. No one knows what the fuck to say with this stuff. Isak doesn’t even know what he wants people to say.

Even is sorry, then he’s quiet, and that’s all the two of them know to do with this moment.

Isak just wants to go home.

When there’s an hour until the flight and even less time until boarding, Even speaks again.

“I’ve done that.”

“Huh?”

“Tried to kill myself. Twice, actually.”

Isak doesn’t know what the fuck to say with this stuff, but he does his best.

“I’m glad you failed.”

“Me too.”

Isak offers him a small smile, which Even returns.

“I don’t know what’s going on with your mom,” Even says. “But I didn’t think I’d be ok again, and then I was. Some days are shit, sometimes longer than that is shit, but I’m still here. She can be ok again.”

There it is. The right thing to say.

If only Even were a better liar.

\---

Even doesn’t know if he’s lying, but he doesn’t really mind lying anyway.

If it comforts Isak, it’s ok. He runs his thumb over the back of Isak’s hand and yes, ok, he _is_ objectively ok right now. So ok, that he doesn’t want to talk about it that much anymore. He’ll take the pills, and he’ll go to therapy, but it can’t be everything again, especially now that he’s lived in a place where it wasn’t.

But now, he’s going home. To his mom, well-meaning but overbearing. His dad with his quiet, steadfast, but very, very obvious concern. His friends who ask too many questions because they don’t trust Google, and they shouldn’t, but sometimes he just doesn’t want to fucking talk about it.

And then there’s his girlfriend.

Even drops Isak’s hand: he can’t collect another regret. It could kill him.

They’re called to board: only eight hours now. Even hopes it goes faster than the last four.

He’s going home, and it’s time to accept that.

\---

Isak compares his ticket with Even’s as they board. Different aisles and different rows.

There is, Isak is sure, another universe where they end up beside each other. Maybe they share headphones as they watch a movie, maybe Isak helps Even through his fear of flying, maybe Even helps Isak through his fear of every fucking thing. It’s just not this one.

Eight more hours, Isak thinks as he takes his seat. In the air, with Even, even if Isak can’t even see him now.

Isak, selfishly, hopes the time passes slowly.


End file.
